08 April 2008

This year a number of deserving organisations received awards, including The Times, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. All of these contributions were notable, as they provided coverage, exposed truths and challenged public thinking and beliefs. Recognition is certainly well deserved.

But for one man, national recognition has been a long time coming. A popular figure in American culture for more than five decades, Robert Zimmerman, popularly known as Bob Dylan, changed the value of music, blurring the lines of rock and folk, and influencing the movement for social change during a decade of war and discovery.

Never one claiming to change the world, Dylan adamantly denied the ability of music to influence social and political change, yet he became the voice of a generation.

But now rock n' roll has finally broken through the Pulitzer wall. Dylan, the most acclaimed and influential songwriter of the past half century, who more than anyone brought rock from the streets to the lecture hall, received an honorary Pulitzer Prize yesterday, cited for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."

Long after most of his contemporaries either died, left the business or held on by the ties of nostalgia, Dylan continues to tour almost continuously and release highly regarded records. Fans, critics and academics have obsessed over his lyrics — even digging through his garbage for clues — since the mid-1960's, when such protest anthems as "Blowin' in the Wind" made Dylan a poet and prophet for a rebellious generation.

His songs include countless biblical references and he has claimed Chekhov, Walt Whitman and Jack Kerouac as influences. His memoir, "Chronicles, Volume One," received a National Book Critics Circle nomination in 2005 and is widely acknowledged as the rare celebrity book that can be treated as literature. According to publisher Simon & Schuster, Dylan is working on a second volume of memoirs. No release date has been set.

The Pulitzer Prize is the highest national honor in print journalism, music and the arts and is awarded annually.

Prayed in the ghetto with my face in the cement,Heard the last moan of a boxer, seen the massacre of the innocentFelt around for the light switch, became nauseated.She was walking down the hallway while the walls deteriorated.

East of the Jordan, hard as the Rock of Gibraltar,I see the burning of the page, Curtain risin' on a new age,See the groom still waitin' at the altar.

Try to be pure at heart, they arrest you for robbery,Mistake your shyness for aloofness, your shyness for snobbery,Got the message this morning, the one that was sent to meAbout the madness of becomin' what one was never meant to be.

West of the Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar,I see the burning of the stage,Curtain risin' on a new age,See the groom still waitin' at the altar.

Don't know what I can say about Claudette that wouldn't come back to haunt me,Finally had to give her up 'bout the time she began to want me.But I know God has mercy on them who are slandered and humiliated.I'd a-done anything for that woman if she didn't make me feel so obligated.

West of the Jordan, west of the Rock of Gibraltar,I see the burning of the cage,Curtain risin' on a new stage,See the groom still waitin' at the altar.

Put your hand on my head, baby, do I have a temperature?I see people who are supposed to know better standin' around like furniture.There's a wall between you and what you want and you got to leap it,Tonight you got the power to take it, tomorrow you won't have the power tokeep it.

West of the Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar,I see the burning of the stage, Curtain risin' on a new age,See the groom still waitin' at the altar.

Cities on fire, phones out of order,They're killing nuns and soldiers, there's fighting on the border.What can I say about Claudette?Ain't seen her since January,She could be respectably married or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires.

West of the Jordan, west of the Rock of Gibraltar,I see the burning of the stage,Curtain risin' on a new age,See the groom still waitin' at the altar.